Things Lost Are Safe
by celinae
Summary: Quae amissa salva. Love, death, the things in between loss, and those few moments of realization beyond it. a crackSakurapairingsdrabble series. kakasaku, gaasaku, itasaku, shikasaku, kibasaku..
1. The Colors We Make, Gaasaku

**Disclaimer:** All creative rights to the Naruto characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto; I am not getting any profit from this story.  
**A/N:** This is going to a set of unrelated drabbles involving **crackSakura** pairings, most of which I'm probably going to post/take from my lj before putting here. This chapter: Gaara and Sakura.

* * *

**The Colors We Make**

All you had to do to make the color pink was add white to red. Sakura knew it could be as simple as that. It _was_ as simple as that, but for some reason, running her hands through his rough auburn hair, she couldn't imagine it, this dried red color into its softer, more feminine dilution. His hair was the color of beating, meaty hearts, and her hair was the color of bitten, kissed lips, and together their hair melded together to form something more than their own hue. Sakura half-smiled at her poetic thoughts, and sank down to kiss him as he reached up for her hand.

He was so needy, even now, but she couldn't deny him though sometimes his rough grip on her wrists hurt her, or how his eyes burned too brightly for her to look away despite the dizziness she felt. Because in those moments when he kissed her softly, like now, she could taste the loneliness that permeated his skin, that had made up so much of his past. She recognized that feeling, if she had never felt it intensely as he had. So she let him touch her where he wanted, and sometimes it hurt but it was worth it, at the sight of his eyes narrowing with something like _relief_.

And sometimes, afterwards, he would hold her as she fell asleep. She felt guilty at the fact that he could never rest, while his presence so easily could make her drift off. But at the same time, he held her so gently that all she could do was to try not to cry in gratefulness (she had already done that too many times before).

All you had to do to make red was to cut your skin. But perhaps it was simpler than that.


	2. Red Snow Clouds, Itasaku

**Disclaimer**: All creative rights to the Naruto characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto; I am not getting any profit from this story.

**A/N**: Itasaku this time. Slightly edited from the lj version.

* * *

**Red Snow Clouds.**

He chased her in this unyielding nightmare.

She felt her heart beating in her throat, the underlying taste of her blood in her mouth, and she wanted to bite down on her tongue, pinch herself. It was the worst dream she ever had—she could barely move, she had no energy and she was heavily injured, about to _die_—

But it was real. Sakura couldn't escape the reality, or escape him. She didn't even have enough chakra to stay on the surface of the snowfall, and so here she crouched at the base of a tree, the snow just barely reaching over her head in her current position. The flakes that gathered on her clothing were melting, and the cold wind seeped into her small dug-out hole and chilled the sections of her jacket, scarves, and pants that were already wet.

The medic nin in Sakura knew that it was almost too late. She would faint from the blood loss very soon, and the cold would freeze her heart, and she would be dead. It sounded almost like a peaceful way to die—in your sleep, but Sakura knew this was a nightmare, and it would haunt, and haunt her forever.

The white snow muted and silenced everything, and all she could hear was the gentle rushing of the ice-bearing wind, as it glided over snowy surfaces. It almost unnerved her, the silence, because she knew He was there, waiting and looking for her. He probably already knew where she was, and would catch up to her in a moment and—

A hand rushed through the snow that she piled over her head, and grabbed hold of the edge of her jacket, holding her up effortlessly. The snow painfully scraped her, and tugged off her clothing a bit more, and if she looked down she knew she'd see her scarves lying on the floor, and her jacket opening to reveal the flimsy mesh shirt she wore underneath.

Her hair was soaked, it stuck to her face and irritated her eyes, but she didn't dare brush it away from her forehead, with Him looking so intensely at her.

She laughed weakly. "So, Itachi, are you going to kill me now? Hurry up, the cold will get me before you do, if you keep dragging it out like this."

She thought she saw him frown, but she could barely make out his red eyes from the shadows of his bamboo hat, and the small bell dangled in front of her, entrancingly. Sakura, forgetting the situation she was in completely, the fact that a mass murderer and S-class criminal was holding her up, and it was cold, and she was about to die (was almost dead already), reached out to touch the bell.

It was cold under her numb fingertips (her left hand; her right had been slashed so severely that she was certain that some muscles had been cut, and it hung, unmoving), and Sakura noticed, almost with amusement, that her fingers were slowly turning blue. She had always thought that it was strange how the human body could turn such an unnatural color. Her body would die and decompose and become part of nature, and now her fingers were bluish-purple and she was almost dead—she wanted to laugh, again—

"Enough," he almost snapped, if you could call it snapping. His voice was very low and flat, but Sakura could hear it shiver and still all of her limbs, till she hung limply from his slipping grasp on her opening coat.

He dropped her, and she fell through the fragile surface of the snow, and screamed as the ice tore through and bit into her wounds, her hoarse voice cracking and ripping out of her throat. The sound echoed in the silent grove, but Sakura couldn't feel anything but the pain that rocked her, that tore and ripped and consumed her last coherent thoughts. She wanted to die, she didn't care about anything other than the pain and the respite that death could give her.

She was whimpering, but her pride was gone.

Tears dripped down her face and froze on her cheeks, and then Itachi moved, too fast to see, and thrust a kunai through her heart.

She crumpled, her body falling to the side. The snow propped her upright, almost as if she had just dropped off to a nap, her head lolling a bit to the side as if any moment she would stir and turn sleepy eyes on him, and smile happily at his presence.

Itachi stood above her, looking down at her now peaceful, frozen face, at the blood that stained the snow all around them. He had loved her once, if you could call it loving, but she was dead now, and these emotions he felt for her didn't matter anymore.

He turned around, his clouded cloak billowing in the wind, and leaped into the snow-laden trees, and her scream echoed in the whispering breeze of the silent groove.

* * *


	3. Still Warm, Itasaku

**Disclaimer**: All creative rights to the Naruto characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto; I am not getting any profit from this story  
**A/N**: I kind of like it, but I have suspicions as to the IC-ness of Itachi. And I probably didn't get his feeling of pain across well, but eh… XD;; You could say this is just writing practice?

* * *

**Still Warm**

He would like to lie and say he doesn't remember that moment so long ago, but the fact is that Itachi Uchiha remembers everything. So he can't lie, at least, not about this—because he recalls that moment, like every other one, with undeserving clarity.

It is almost confusing, that memory, for as a S-ranked missing nin, Itachi has stifled nearly all of his attachments to anyone, excepting his foolish little brother. Yes, he is Akatsuki, and has a partner named Kisame, but Akatsuki is anything but binding, and Kisame is a rash fool who has a tendency to let his rage cloud his judgment, and someday he will get himself killed. (It is useless to care for such a fleeting relationship, and Itachi is anything if pragmatic.)

Itachi does not suffer fools well. He supposes it is the result of the Uchiha massacre—once he knew how easy it was to remove the source of his irritation, any point in enduring it was suddenly worthless.

Looking back, he wonders what had changed between his twelve-year-old self and now, that he would have, years ago, spied on that pink-haired girl crying in the field, and decided to stay to watch her. Whatever it was, compassion or pity, it was some nonsense luckily since eradicated.

Yet at the same time, perhaps the weakness lingers. For here he is, still, staring at her dead body on the forest ground, and he cannot rip his gaze from the spill of red-stained pink hair that stands out so brightly against the drab soil. She was annoyingly easy to kill—a fool of the first order, if she had not even sensed him killing her teammates before he had decapitated her with one single, unseen movement.

His knees buckle—he finds himself kneeling on the ground, before her severed head, and thinks with some vague sense of horror that he is glad no one is here to see this… _thi_—he remembers her heaving shoulders and the tears that slipped past these now dull, shocked green eyes—Itachi reaches out and closes them, her skin still warm against his calloused fingertips.

For a girl he does not even remember the name of, has never even met besides long ago and now, how is it that he feels this strange emotion? It makes him want to rip something to shreds, maybe his heart, but instead he settles for familiar seals and the heat of a Katon that burns her body to ashes. And why_, why_? Why does he feel as if it is not enough? Why does he remember too well the feel of his blade slipping under her skin? Why was it that when he realized that it was _she_ he killed, and that she was _dead_, he let his sword fall from his grasp?

A bird chirps, and Itachi tenses before the familiar numbness sets in. He remembers how it is not to feel, not to be attached, and it is a welcome mantle that settles far too slowly over the puzzling brittle rawness. Turning, away from the blackened earth, he gathers his katana and jumps onto a tree, speeding away towards the place where he agreed to meet Kisame. It will take him three days to reach it, and Kisame will ask foolish questions if he is late.

He does not notice the single pink hair that had attached itself to his clouded cloak until he stops for the night.

* * *

It takes a week for Kisame to report Itachi's death to the Akatsuki. By then, the smell of ash no longer lingers by the place where Sakura died.

* * *


	4. Turning and Turning, Kakasaku,One of Two

**Disclaimer**: All creative rights to the Naruto characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto; I am not getting any profit from this story. Nor do I own the poem "the Second Coming," by William Butler Yeats.

**A/N**: First part of a twoshot, which I hope to complete, though I suspect school and exhaustion will intervene. Kakasaku, angst, character death. The title is from a pretty famous poem by Yeats, "The Second Coming."

* * *

_Turning and turning in the widening gyre  
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;  
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;  
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,  
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;  
The best lack all conviction, while the worst  
Are full of passionate intensity.[...  
_

-William Butler Yeats

* * *

**Turning and Turning **

**.o. **

Kakashi was relaxed, a bit tense, but mostly unworried as he leapt over rooftops in the direction of the Hokage's tower. The note dropped through his window, the small scrap of paper with the Hokage's seal on it, was probably nothing more than a sudden mission request.

Truthfully, though, he didn't want to accept it, since Sakura was already a week late from the Cloud Country, and he wanted to know she was fine before being made to leave Konoha. But Kakashi had faith in Sakura. She was intelligent, courageous, and a skilled medic nin. She was perfect, and sometimes he would look at her, and wonder how she could have emerged from everything so complete? Sasuke, Naruto, himself—they were imitations, parodies of stability.

Because she could smile up at him, and he'd forget the ninja he killed, the eye he took, the ties to the village that destroyed his father. He would forget that he was a ninja, because _she_ was smiling at him. At Kakashi, the man. And even though every moment he wasn't with her, he doubted himself and questioned how someone so impure, so spoiled, so broken could be with her, all she had to do was be there and smile at him, and he'd think, _oh, I remember._

When she wasn't there, a small nagging impulse settled deep in his heart, and every day she was away it made him eagerly await the next, when she'd come back and he could bury his arms around her and finally nestle his face in the hollows of her bones.

But he, in turn, buried this nagging want under his heart and waited. So he went to the Hokage's tower, because the woman would get angry and impatient if he didn't arrive within an hour of the message, and make the probability greater that she would send him out on the theoretical mission she wanted to tell him about.

He wasn't surprised to see Sasuke outside the Hokage's office's closed doors, either, because sometimes she wanted them to go on missions together. Kakashi started to wave, his mouth opening to greet him, when he noticed something extremely shocking and immensely worrisome.

Sasuke Uchiha—who had formerly been taught by S-class criminal and master of the sadistic, Orochimaru—who had spent three years in the Sound village, purportedly learning forbidden and corrupt jutsu and being the object of Orochimaru's specialized brand of tortuous training and dotage—Sasuke Uchiha, who had almost killed his brother—was shaking.

It was almost imperceptible, the slightest quiver of the hands held by his sides, and an even more slight swaying of his body, but Kakashi had always been skilled at reading beneath the underneath, and was even more adept at detecting the emotions of his students.

Of course, Sasuke had been perfecting the art of the completely blank, disinterested face with just as much care, so it was no surprise that his expression was set in its customary neutral position when Sasuke (finally) noticed Kakashi, and tilted his head up. In fact, Sasuke didn't betray anything, except for one moment, when he had first spied Kakashi less than five meters away from him.

Observing the slight widening of Sasuke's eye, Kakashi thought it was like looking at an old piece of china, abused but still mostly unblemished, suddenly cracking through its middle and falling soundlessly into two halves on the table.

"Kakashi-sensei," Sasuke acknowledged, his voice steady but hoarse. Kakashi nodded back, his uplifted hand falling limply back down, before he tucked it into his pocket, almost as an afterthought.

There was something seriously wrong, Kakashi was beginning to suspect, and wondered if Tsunade's summons were really as innocent as he thought. He breathed in deeply and braced himself, wondering at what could have possibly unbalanced Sasuke so much, but hesitant to probe what he was trying so hard to conceal.

* * *

Naruto arrived a few minutes later, and Kakashi almost forgot to wonder at what strange twist of fate actually made him early for something. But he didn't get to ponder this unusual occurrence, nor did Naruto have time to argue with Sasuke and possibly figure out that something was Up, because just as Naruto boomed a loud, "Ohayou," the doors opened. 

Sasuke started, and moved immediately inside the office, brushing past Kakashi's restrained stare and Naruto's puzzled, fading grin. Naruto looked sideways at Kakashi, who just shrugged, and forced out a fake grin at him, which seemed to reassure him somewhat, so he followed Sasuke inside. Kakashi brought up the rear, and closed the doors behind him, taking in the situation.

Shizune stood beside Tsunade's desk, whispering something to the woman, who drooped over the heap of papers on the table surface. Her blonde hair was in a disarray, bangs falling over and hiding her eyes, and her hands were cradled around her forehead in such a manner that Kakashi immediately suspected that she was nursing a nasty hangover. Tsunade murmured something to Shizune, what Kakashi thought might have been a, "Yes, please, send summons to them, too," and then Shizune rushed out past them and fled into the hallway, the doors banging shut behind her.

The loud departure seemed to make the room become smaller and quieter. Kakashi leaned back on the wall and let his eyes rest half-lidded, watching Naruto and Sasuke seat themselves on the chairs before the Hokage's desk. The silence seemed to stretch out further, as Tsunade stayed motionless, not even addressing the new occupants of the room, who sat stiffly in their chairs. The usually forward Naruto wasn't even talking to his surrogate aunt, instinctively sensing the tension in the air, and keeping quiet.

And then she lifted her head up, and distractedly she brushed her mussed hair out of her face, bringing to light the swollen, blood-shot eyes, and splotchy skin. The men tensed, Kakashi watching the scene play out with a sense of horror, as Tsunade sniffled and said, "Sakura was killed," before her face crumpled and tears spilled out of her eyes, which she vainly tried to wipe away.

The soft, gasping sound of her sobs wrenched and broke Kakashi's world apart, because they drove deep into his heart the fact that it was true, and he could feel himself freezing and cracking, mired in a desperation called grief.

She was dead. The woman Kakashi loved was dead.

* * *


	5. Morning Light, Shikasaku

**Disclaimer:** All creative rights to the Naruto characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto; I am not getting any profit from this story.

**A/N:** I've been so busy that I haven't thought of writing fanfic in ages. Sorry. It's a bit fluffy this time, but hopefully not too horrible. XD;

* * *

**Morning Light**

She's forgotten why, or even if she still loves him. Maybe it's because so much time has passed since those rosy, glittering days of adolescence, but when Sakura looks at Shikamaru she wonders where the striking young man left. All she sees now is a companion, a friend who still beats her at shogi (though, to her credit, she has won once or twice), a lazy bum who sleeps on the couch most of the day while she works, the man she yells at.

Maybe their relationship has slipped into something so familiar that it has lost its passion. They sleep in different beds, and spend their days doing whatever it is they do now. Sakura even occasionally flirts with the bachelor ninjas at the hospital. Their patterns of evasion and friendliness have cemented after such a long time, so it is with an effort that Sakura finally sits down on the floor in front of him one evening, her eyes carefully not meeting his, and shakes his shoulder gently.

"Hngh? Did somebody die?" He opened his eyes, his long hair dropping out of his ponytail, a mixture of irritation and concern in his voice. Shikamura tensed when he noticed how close they were; Sakura's head was less than a foot away from his as he lay on the couch.

Sakura shook her head, smiling almost sadly at his annoyed tone, and hesitantly leaned forward to kiss him, her arms reaching to brace themselves on his shoulders, and after a moment of shock Shikamaru kisses back. It's almost like Sakura remembers, that frisson of excitement and desire arising from his firm, demanding touch.

And, maybe, maybe she really does love him. Maybe this, and the way he would laugh at her, and the way that he touches her gently after coming home from the hospital, and the way that they drink together, and the way that she can't imagine being with anyone; maybe that's love.

She looks into his eyes as he wakes up and sees her lying next to him in the morning, and decides that it is.


	6. Soluble, Kakasaku

**Disclaimer:** All creative rights to the Naruto characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto; I am not getting any profit from this story.

**A/N:** The alternative title for this could be "Illumination," (or even, I guess, "Soluble Illumination" XD) though I like "Soluble" most because it sounds a lot more artsy (and because solubility reminds me of chemistry! XD).

This is a repost, since I took it down after I submitted the original (nonfanfic) version to a contest, but nothing came of it, so here it is again. XD;

* * *

Soluble

o.o

o.o

o.o

He dreamed of following the gentle sweep of a dress, perhaps pale pink, or maybe green, through a maze that was dark and wet. He knew that the owner of the dress was horrible, and that getting lost within the maze was hardly better. But with nothing to do, as this wasteland of towering walls and flickering shadows was unknown to him, he followed the foreboding feeling evoked by the soft whisper of cotton against rough ground.

At one point, he heard a cry, tearing over his skin like the rasp of a dull edge over the serrated scars of a wound.

He wanted to cry himself at the pain overfilling his heart, like a cup overflowing with aches, and he felt himself becoming undone. Maybe his skin was turning inside out, and here was his liver, a spark of pain, and these twitching piles of tissue were his lungs, his kidneys melting into clotting blood and clear yellow liquid. It was a hurt so acute was distant from it, as though looking down at his organs lying on the ground, recognizing they should be in his body but not comprehending why they weren't.

_Yes, this sensation is shock_, he thought, and at that a swatch of cloth filled his vision, and he felt himself on the ground, looking up as a huge shape of soft color bent over him, blocking the red cast of light in the maze.

'You could be an angel,' he projected at the form that was creeping closer, 'but I'd rather you read books then stay in them.'

The shape lifted a hand, which he thought was so finely sculpted, as it drifted over his face to land on his sweating brow. There was a glow shining from its unnaturally pale skin, and at one point it was close enough that he could see blue veins winding through its almost translucent flesh. And if he could tell this dream to someone he would never mention how light and cool the hand felt against his brow, because he'd be deluding himself.

'And I see that you don't understand the concept of space yet,' he said with irony, though truthfully it seemed impossible to speak in the thick, foggy twilight of his maze. 'You're still flickering in and out of existence.' But one thing stayed constant; the dim, intense stare of green bearing down on him, pink at the edges.

The shape thinned into a more humanoid figure, and for the first time he could sense it smiling, for the heavy weight of the shape seemed to lessen at its top. But growing horror filled him, and he couldn't bear the distorted pressure of the spirit's smile, so he laughed, hysterically. His laughter felt too desperate in the shifting silence, his mouth opening and gulping with huge gasping high-pitched sobs.

'I'm sorry,' he forced out between wracking fits of hysteria. 'I know it hurts, I do. And I _did_ love—' His voice deepened and twisted off into a groan. And suddenly he was retching into the dirt, the hand disappearing, and the image of writhing uniform motion of bloated organs pressed shut into his eyes.

When he awoke he felt the sour taste of reality, and licking his lips he repressed the urge to slip back into sleep and chase the familiar, horrifying specter of his dream.

'_I did love_—,' but no, he couldn't remember how he intended to finish the sentence. Though perhaps the dress was an allusion to an old love of his. How could he tell? He was awake now, and his fitful hallucinations were being folded into his mind again, hiding their once visible meanings. He stretched hesitantly and in the same movement pushed the tangled sheets off his body.

Awkwardly, he rose out of bed and pulled his hair out of his scarred eye, to begin another listless, unwilling day, and the feeble winter light filtering in through the decayed curtains bathed his naked skin.

* * *


	7. You Remind Me of You, Kakasaku

**Disclaimer:** All creative rights to the Naruto characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto; I am not getting any profit from this story. I also have a feeling that I read a book once that had this as the title; if it did, then I guess I don't own it, either.

**A/N**: Summer has been going well? I'm desperately trying not to think too hard about the beginning of school. We'll see how that effort will help anything. The next chapter of Panacea will hopefully be finished before school starts, because I'm pretty sure that it'll get a lot harder to write it once it does. Until then, I hope you like this little angsty drabble. :)

* * *

**You Remind Me of You**

o.o

o.o

o.o

She wakes up, rubs her eyes hard. And maybe that would explain why she ends up wiping away tears. Maybe it doesn't.

She buries her face into the pillows. The dream she had is slipping off her memory, a dark mess of streets and faces. One face, in particular, and she tries to recall more, but the details evaporate, and she is left with a longing, an odd twist in her chest.

She sits up abruptly, but her movements slow down as she swings her feet out of the bed and rests them on the wooden floor. It's her day off, so she doesn't have to worry about rushing. So she doesn't.

She combs her fingers through her sleep-mussed hair. She washed it before she went to bed; the pink, short strands stick up oddly even after a minute of struggling with them, and finally she just shoves them all to one side and lets them flop where they will.

In the bathroom she tries to ignore, as usual, the little things he had forgotten: the dark towel still on the rack, the yellowing toothbrush she hid under the sink, the still-lingering scent of aftershave that he always put on in the morning.

She put the bottle in the deepest part of her closet and on days when it's the worst, she opens it and smells the piney, musky scent of him. It's the clearest thing she has of him, now that he's gone. He was always an elusive person, never very open with his feelings or his past, and now that he's no longer there she only has the memories and the little things that remind her of his terrible, gaping absence.

On her days off, like this one, she makes herself lunch and eats it sitting up against the memorial stone. His name touches a place on her hipbone that he once loved to kiss, and as she forces herself to eat she imagines that the name is burning into her skin.

* * *


	8. The Heart of Light, Kibasaku

**Disclaimer**: All creative rights to the Naruto characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto; I am not getting any profit from this story.

**A/N**: Life is crazy, and of late I haven't thought of things like writing fanfic that much. Be sad, entreat me if you will. XD I'm too busy trying not to screw up everything (and screwing up anyway.)

* * *

**The Heart of Light**

* * *

_--Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,  
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not__  
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither  
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,  
Looking into the heart of light, the silence. _

--T.S. Eliot, **The Wasteland**

**

* * *

  
**

It might have happened like this:

On a fine spring morning, the wind whipping her pink hair into a frenzy, Sakura punches Kiba. He grunts, falls on the ground; Sakura feels a vindictive jolt of satisfaction to see him almost cowering before her in her fury. She's been an underdog for so long, never able to beat others where it actually _counts—_but here is Kiba, at her feet.

"I trust that you'll never say a condescending word about Naruto in front of me again, you mangy mutt." The words arch off her tongue, sharp and brilliant, and she smiles into some far off future.

With a sharp pivot about, she strides off, blithely ignoring Kiba's wide-eyed expression of shock.

Or maybe one day he pushes her down at the playground, smirking at her while her face reddens, taunting her, pulling her hair.

But this time, she doesn't cry. Instead, she stares stonily at him and sneers. There is a suspicious wet depth to her eyes, but she doesn't let the tears fall. Rather, she makes _him _fall, with a sharp shove and a weak kick to the shins.

Kiba never admits to anyone that she beat him up when they were both six, and Sakura smiles enigmatically whenever a friend brings up the topic of her relationship with the Inuzuka.

Whatever scenario, whatever truth that befell them, they lie here together. His eyes are drifting shut, their bodies are heaped unceremoniously upon each other so that their rasping breaths intermingle. What thoughts are left to them, now? What regrets?

It ends like this:

Sakura turns her head a little to the side and smiles into the fading light.

* * *


End file.
